


Lost Time

by Spillingvelvet



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Nanites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spillingvelvet/pseuds/Spillingvelvet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all fun and games until someone puts on an alien device...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [2010 Cam Mitchell Trope Ficathon](http://cm-tropefic.dreamwidth.org/9532.html). This story exists in the same arc as the story I wrote for last year's challenge, [What Does a Monkey Know of the Taste of Ginger?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/53030). You don't have to read that to get this, but if you'd like to know some of their history, it's there for you.
> 
> Beta and a whole heap of cheerleading by the fabulous [Kisahawklin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin). <3

“I’m bored,” Vala complains, whirling herself around on a stool in Daniel’s office.

“You’re always bored,” Cameron mumbles. He’s slouched over the counter in his own chair, eyes half-closed and head propped on his hand.

Vala makes a considering face and sucks on her teeth. She stops her stool with an outstretched foot and waggles her eyebrows at Teal'c. "What about you, Muscles, can I interest you in a wrestling match?"

Teal'c, standing silent by the door, quirks an eyebrow. Cam is pretty sure he'd bet on Teal'c winning in a tussle with Vala, but he wouldn't bet high. He reckons Vala's pretty scrappy and she's got very pointy elbows.

“I could zat you,” Daniel offers helpfully without looking up from his book.

“And have your wicked way with me? Absolutely,” she flashes him a saucy wink.

"Look," Daniel snaps his book closed and stands. "Much as I enjoy the company-" he pauses to glare at Vala after she snorts, "- is there a reason you all are congregating in my office? Isn't there anything better to do? Or place to go?" Daniel asks, making shooing motions. "Please go."

"There's nothing else to dooooo," Vala whines and drops her head on the counter.

“Can it,” Cam rumbles, although he doesn't expect them to listen. They've been grounded for two weeks after the Gate was shut down for some damn reason - Power relay issue? Over-loaded capacitors? Cam had checked out after hearing "Gate is down" when Sam was explaining it. The ennui has set in with a vengeance. Cam's finished all of his paperwork, re-organized his desk, and run the entire length of the base hallways, including the public sectors. Twice.

He's about to offer to spar with Teal'c himself when Sam sweeps into the office carrying a cardboard box.

"New gadget!" she says brightly.

"Have you fixed the gate yet?" Cam asks, the hand on his cheek stretching his mouth wide.

"How many times do you think you've stepped through the gate?" Sam asks instead.

"Two hundred and seventy-eight," Cam answers automatically, “Have you fixed it yet?”

Sam halts, mouth open. "Really? You're still counting?"

"He continues a tallied account." Teal'c speaks for the first time all morning. "I have seen the notebook in which he keeps the record,"

"Dammit, Teal’c,” Cameron sits up and crosses his arms. “You're always blabbin' people's business." Teal’c tucks the corners of his mouth upward again in a sly smile, but inclines his head anyway.

"Actually, that's helpful, for once," Sam says with a bright, unrepentant grin while Cam gives her a withering look. "I think you'll really like these." She reaches inside the box and pulls out a wristband that looks familiar.

Vala perks up. "Ooh, I do love a good gadget." She reaches forward, only to have her hand slapped away by Daniel.

"I just want to _see_ it," she sulks.

"Is it a cloak or something cool like that?" Cam asks, because he likes a good alien gadget now and then, too -- the shinier, the better. Sam hands him the device and he peers at it closely. It's the size of a wristwatch, shaped like a snake eating its tail, with blocky, cartoonish pictures winding around the body like scales. He turns it around in his hands a few times before before passing it back to Sam over Vala’s wild clutching.

"Way cooler,” Sam continues. “As you know, every time we pass through the gate, our bodies are de-materialized at the molecular level and sent streaming through space to the other side.” She pauses for nods (which Cam usually does even if he doesn't understand), before continuing, ”We also know that the process _seems_ instantaneous, but in actuality it takes between zero-point-one and three-point-six seconds for our matter to be transferred and re-materialized based on the distance between the two gates. The average works out to one-point-three seconds."

"Okay," Daniel frowns in concentration, waiting for her point. Cameron can tell he's just humoring them while waiting for the opportunity to kick everyone out so he can get back to work -- _work doing what, what can he possibly have to work on?_ \-- being the only SGC team member who doesn't get itchy with cabin fever the moment gate travel is restricted. Well, him and maybe Carter, although Cam would expect her to be a little more troubled about the gate problems. She's got too many gadgets to occupy herself with, Cam decides. Maybe he should hide some to save her from distraction until the gate is back in working order. If he used the sodan cloak, he could get away with it easily. His afternoon is open, after all...

"What would you do if you could get those milliseconds back?" Sam's question breaks into Cam's musing. The team stares back at her, nonplussed. Definitely too many gadgets, Cam decides.

"Ooo-kay, that wasn't as impressive as it sounded in my head," she concedes, "but it gets better!"

"These things give you less than a second of time that you missed," Cam drawls and leans back, crossing his arms again, “I’ll live to be a hundred years and oh-point-three-seconds. Sounds incredible. _Have you fixed the gate yet?_ ”

"Actually, we think that these things give you back _all_ of the time you've ever missed," Sam looks smug as she continues to ignore Cam’s persistent question.

This time, the silence that greets her is a little sharper, a little more interested.

"How is that even possible?" Daniel asks finally, swatting Vala’s creeping hand away again.

Vala takes it in stride and slaps the table instead. "Maybe they keep a _tally_!"

Cam glares and Vala winks at him from across the counter.

"It's giving off the same sort of radiation signature as an Asgard time-dilation field generator.”

Teal’c quirks his eyebrow, “Colonel Carter, are you suggesting that this device is able to stop time?”

“Relatively,” Sam stops and bares her teeth in a nervous smile. “We think. Well, we _believe_ that the wrist-band creates a miniature time-dilation field around the wearer, but, we’re not really sure how that's accomplished, since it would require a lot of energy and there doesn't seem to be any sort of power source..." she trails off, pauses, and brightens. "Anyway, it’s the most-likely theory that Doctor Lee and I have been able to come up with.” She turns her attention to Daniel, “We could actually use your help with these markings." she jiggles it at him temptingly.

Daniels squints at Sam suspiciously, scrapes his chair back and reaches for the device. He turns it over in his hands and something seems to click in his mind. His attention focuses and Cam imagines a light bulb going on over Daniel's head.

Daniel drags his glasses down and looks closely at the device over the rims. He makes a few interested sounds and Cam waits for a revelation.

Several moments pass with Daniel in contemplation. Vala resumes spinning in her chair.

“Well?” Cam prompts. Daniel snaps out of his reverie, looks up in surprise, probably having forgotten anyone was in the room, and clears his throat.

“Right, well, I can’t be certain without checking my notes and possibly the Asgard database, but this looks Mayan or early Mesoamerican. Possibly even Aztec,” he muses. "And I think Sam's right."

Vala nods her head excitedly and makes gimme hands at it. Daniel looks at her in mild interest before handing it back to Sam deliberately. His eyes are beginning to take on a playful twinkle.

Daniel stands up and goes to his bookshelf, taking down a dusty, leatherbound book the size of a briefcase. Cam reaches out and helps him sling it onto the counter, huffing out a grunt at the weight of it. Daniel thanks him and blows on the cover, releasing a cloud of dust.

Cam coughs and steps back, waving his hand before his face. Vala wrinkles her nose.

"Here," Daniel crows triumphantly, pointing at a drawing. "Tezcatlipoca."

"Bless you," Vala says and starts spinning again.

Daniel ignores her and continues, "Aztec god of time."

"When do we get to test it out?" Cam asks.

"Oh, well, I have to develop some kind of graphic interface so we can determine how long the wearer has," Sam says. "Also, we don't really know how to turn it on. It could take a few hours."

Vala lets herself spin down to a stop and flops over the counter again.

Daniel picks up a crumpled ball of paper and lobs it across the counter to smack her in the side of the face. She shrieks in protest and throws it back, only for Cam to bat it away just before it makes contact with Daniel's nose.

"Children!" He barks.

"He started it," Vala subsides with a grumble.

"Oh for--" Cam stomps around the table and grabs Vala out of the chair by the arm of her BDU's.

"Hey!" She shouts and smacks at his hand. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the gym," he grits out and frog-marches her down the hallway.

"Would you be interested in a game of basketball, Colonel Mitchell?" Teal'c asks as he follows them out.

“Somethin’. Hell, dodge ball would do right now,” Cam calls over his shoulder.

***

They've been playing for half an hour, and Cam and Daniel lead by six points. Cam goes in for a smooth lay-up, only for Vala to punch the ball away, whilst riding Teal'c's shoulders. Sam, who's guarding Daniel, cheers.

"Totally illegal," Cam gasps as Daniel chases the ball across the court.

"Not by my rules," Vala counters while Teal'c sets her down gracefully. She does a wiggly hand-slap with Sam and hip-bumps Teal'c.

"What rules are you playin' by?" Cam squints and tugs the hem of his shirt up to wipe his forehead before propping his hands on his knees to pant.

He misses Vala's reply when the klaxons start blaring an unscheduled wormhole. Daniel drops the basketball and the whole team races for the door. There's a frenzied bottle-neck and Vala, all elbows and knees, climbs up on Cam's back, who's already trying to crawl his way out over Daniel when the gym's speakers crackle and Walter's voice booms out.

"False alarm. Colonel Carter, please report to the gate room."

The team slumps, sending Vala crashing to the ground.

***

“Interesting.” Sam looks at the blinking lights on Cam's wrist and then back at her computer screen, worrying the inside of her cheek in contemplation. “How many times did you say you’ve been through?”

“Two-seventy-eight,” Cam says, “Including that _lively_ jaunt to P4C-519 with SG-12 two weeks ago,” a fly buzzes right into his ear, and he swats at it angrily.

"Wasn't P4C-519 a desert planet?" Daniel asks.

“Ayep, not a damn thing on it but sand and little crawly bugs with about a million legs. Which reminds me, have you fixed the gate yet?”

Sam shakes her head briskly. “Walter is running a diagnostic while we wait for the Odyssey.” She presses some keys, “It’s saying that you have about six minutes saved up.”

Cam decides to ignore the fly, and looks at the wrist-band blankly. The lights blink at him. He looks back at Sam.

“How the hell can you tell that by a bunch of blinking lights? And why are we waiting for the Odyssey?”

“Asgard core," she says, "and it’s using a binary code to relate the information to a program I wrote that translates it,” she says simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. She takes a plastic disk that looks similar to a watch-front and connects it to the circuit board of the wristband. A tiny screen lights up with a display reading, _6.03_. Below that is a green button that glows in gentle pulses.

“Alright, that should do it. Go ahead and try it." Sam beams. "It probably won’t blow you up.”

Cam squints at her suspiciously. He moves his right hand very slowly to his left wrist and pushes the button, bracing for an explosion. His skin tingles, and then the noise and bustle of the base dampens to a hush and silence blooms in his ears. Sam is frozen with her eyes intent and interested, her mouth caught in a tight purse. Vala's slouched over in her seat, pulling her gum out in a long string. Cam whirls around to Daniel, and finds him standing with one hand in his pocket, chin tucked down low, eyes staring at the spot Cam was standing just before.

Cam waves his hand in Daniel’s face. He gets up close and hollers “HOOAH.” Daniel doesn’t respond, just stands there with his other arm caught in a lazy wave. The fly is trapped in the air above Daniel’s fingertips, its wings reflect the fluorescent light and shine like tiny jewels. Cameron stands on his tip-toes and peers at the fly from different angles

Cameron grins. “Cool.”

He experiments further by reaching out and pushing his finger against the sleeve of Daniel's jacket. Moving anything apart from his own body is like pushing through a heavy stream of water. The fabric gives slowly and presses into the skin of Daniel's arm. Cam feels the normal resistance of skin over flesh magnified by the effect of the bracelet on time as he squeezes gently. He glances at his wrist – _fifty-eight-one-thousand, fifty-nine-one-thousand_ \- sixty seconds. A stroll across the galaxy. He withdraws his hand and thumbs off the device. The fabric of Daniel's jacket snaps back into place, and Cam feels a shock of static spark from the tip of his finger.

Daniel rubs his arm absently and his eyes slide over to where Cam is now standing.

"Boom," Cam murmurs, and pushes his thumb and forefinger together.

Everyone looks at him expectantly, and when he doesn't elaborate, Sam clears her throat.

Cam comes back to himself and stares at his hand, a tiny half-grin forming on his face. "Yeah… it works," he says. He feels sort of giddy, and his finger feels hot.

"Can you be more specific?" she prompts.

"I pinched Jackson," Cameron chirps with a little swaggering tilt of his head.

Daniel snaps to attention and frowns. “Hey!” He rubs his arm with renewed vigor and looks around, confused. Vala sniggers and blows a bubble with her gum.

"Huh." Sam turns back to her terminal, ignoring Daniel’s distress.

"What?" Cam looks at Daniel while trying to unbuckle the wrist-band, "I had to do something."

"A minute?" Sam asks, typing rapidly on her keyboard while consulting the screen.

"Yes ma’am," Cam replies, struggling with the clasp, "felt kinda like… swimming or…" he trails off, concentrating in earnest on undoing the device. “Hey, I can’t get it off.”

“What?” Sam looks up, concerned.

“It won’t come off,” Cam repeats.

Everyone looks at Vala. She puts her hands up defensively, wrists bare, and says, "I had nothing to do with it!" Daniel narrows his eyes but looks back at Cam.

“Here, let me,” Sam tries. She tugs at the band for a minute before giving up and grunting. “Maybe the clasp fused,” she suggests. “Does it hurt?”

Cam shakes his head, feeling a pout begin to form.

“He can’t go through the gate until it comes off,” Daniel says slowly. Cam makes a protesting sound while continuing to pry at the clasp.

"The gate is still down, anyway," Sam points out.

"We could try cutting off his hand," Vala pipes up.

"What?" Cam barks. "No!"

“No, but Daniel's right.” Sam makes an apologetic face. "We need to get it off to study further, and if it works the way we think, you'll keep adding time, and it will just take longer to do any more laboratory testing. Not to mention that we don’t know what the long-term effects could be."

She pauses, and thinks for a minute. "Hey, look on the bright side." She says, chucking him on the shoulder, "you have five minutes to play around with it."

Cameron's frown morphs slowly into a wicked grin.

"Aw, crap," Daniel says.

***

Later that afternoon Cam and Teal’c share companionable silence over mess-hall spaghetti and something that is supposed to be garlic bread, but is really just soggy yellow toast. Cam cuts everything up first and shovels it all in while reading a mission report, while Teal’c swirls his noodles around his fork and eats them precisely.

Daniel appears in the doorway, and looks around before spotting their table. Cam waves, his mouth full, and Daniel gives a little upward nod of his head, holds up his hand and points at the service line.

In the hallway outside, Vala's voice precedes her and Sam coming into the mess hall. So much for a quiet lunch. Cam looks down at the table and back at Daniel, and with a sigh, he starts shuffling his papers together to make a few more places.

Teal’c scrapes his chair back, rises, and bows. “Enjoy your spaghetti noodles and bolognaise sauce,” he booms, and walks away swiftly, passing the women on their way in. He catches their wrists and drags them protesting down the hallway with him.

“Later, big guy,” Cameron calls out thickly. Daniel looks after the trio, momentarily surprised, before settling his tray on the table across from Cameron. They look at each other and shrug, but Cameron fights down a blush he can feel in his ears.

***

They all meet again for another game of basketball after lunch. Vala and Daniel take on Teal'c and Cam, while Sam sits in the corner with her tablet and pours over diagnostic reports. Cam fires up the wristband when Daniel leaps for a shot. He briefly ponders a pantsing, but settles for wrestling his shoelaces together. He's not quite there to catch him when time begins again, though, and Daniel stares up from the ground, eyes wide. Vala finds it wildly amusing. Even Teal'c seems to think it's hilarious, and that's what makes Daniel smile grudgingly. He knocks Cam's legs out from under him, anyway, and Cam goes down on top of him, laughing.

"This is all your fault," Daniel scolds when Sam, chortling, helps them up.

***

Later that evening, the team is gathered in the mess again and Cameron is feeling playful. He gives his mashed potatoes to Sam, and pushes his tray away from him. Daniel is writing in his journal and eating a bowl of jello while Vala drinks a chocolate milk-shake. Cam doesn’t stop to wonder how she managed to get the kitchen staff to fix her one, because he probably doesn’t want to know.

Instead, he activates the device and reaches over, prying the pen and spoon from Daniel's hands. It’s hard breaking them away, like they are attached to Daniel's skin by a thousand little rubber bands, but once Cam gets them far enough, something seems to snap and they begin to move freely. He swaps them in Daniel's hands, and then helps himself to the rest of his jello (red, Cam's favorite). Then he leans back in his chair, absurdly pleased with himself and checks the wristband - _thirty-five seconds_. He pushes the button.

Daniel proceeds to thrust his pen into his mouth, and drag his spoon across the page of his notebook, leaving a glob of gelatin residue behind. He looks startled and then gags and spits his pen out onto the table.

Sam snorts into the back of her hand, stopping a mouthful of mashed potatoes from falling out. "This is comedy gold," she chokes, and reaches for her water.

Vala pats her on the back, eyes never leaving the scene before them.

"God damn it, Cam," Daniel wipes at his mouth with a napkin. There is a blot of blue ink on his tongue and most of his bottom lip.

Cam grins and scoops a wobbly spoonful of jello into his mouth.

***

 _Cameron stands before a gate as it spins. Through the floor, in his bones, he can feel the disk shuddering around, locking chevrons one by one. He knows that he’s standing too close. The vortex is about to swell out and consume him, and the only sound he hears is the rushing of someone’s breath, strong and deep._

 _The seventh chevron engages, Cameron’s heart thuds, he feels the gate drawing him closer and --_

Cam gasps awake. He feels hot, feverish; his head pounds and his whole body is shaking and drenched in sweat. His room is dark, the only light coming from a yellow stripe under the door and the glowing green of his bedside clock. _Oh-three-hundred._

“God damn,” he groans and rolls himself to his feet. He staggers down the hall to the locker room, barefoot, in only his shorts, dog tags clanging together against his bare chest. The bright lights are painful and he shields his eyes, making his way across the room to duck his head under the faucet. The cold water is immediate relief and he moans gratefully. The pounding lessens, and his head cools. He stays there for a few minutes, letting the water rush over his skull and down the sides of his face. He’s just pondering a shower when a warm hand settles on his back.

“You okay?”

It’s Daniel.

Cam straightens and wipes the water from his face. He cracks one eye and sees Daniel holding out a towel for him. For a moment, he remembers when they stood almost exactly like this on Kailasa, with the hot, alien sun beating down on their shoulders and little Nisha's playful screeching in the background. Before it all went to hell.

Cam takes the towel and mumbles gratefully into the softness. Daniel turns off the water.

“Headache,” Cam offers, his voice muffled by the towel. He stumbles over and sits on a bench, propping his elbows on his knees, and lets his head hang down with the towel draped around his shoulders.

“Do you wanna go see Doctor Lam?”

“Nope,” Cam stretches and groans as he pops his neck. The lights in the locker room are less blinding now, and he’s starting to feel better.

Daniel goes to his locker and takes a bottle off the top shelf. “Want some Tylenol?” He rattles it enticingly.

“Yeah.” Cam reaches out his hand for a few pills. He swallows them dry with a grimace and stands. “Thanks.”

Daniel shrugs and replaces the bottle cap. It hits Cam that Daniel is shirtless, wearing only his pajama pants. He rubs the towel over his head and Daniel clears his throat. Cam’s face starts to get hot again. He looks up to see Daniel raise his eyebrows and spin away, heading toward the back toward the urinals.

“I’m, uh, I’m gonna go back to bed,” Cam stands and points behind him vaguely. Daniel nods and says “G’night,” over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Cam calls out.

Daniel turns around and looks Cam in the eye. “You’re welcome.” He gives a little twitch of his shoulders that might have been a bow before turning around and disappearing around the wall behind the sinks. Cam doesn’t stare at his smooth back, much.

“Like a god-damned teenager,” he mutters to himself, swinging his towel at the door-frame on the way out.

 

***

 

The dust in the air drifts slowly past Cam’s eyes, sparkling in the fluorescent light. He feels a million miles away, head packed with cotton. He can’t seem to get his thoughts in order, so he’s given up and is contented to watch the dust float by.

“Cam --“

Sam waves her hand in front of Cam’s face.

Oh, right.

He comes to attention abruptly and sits up, his chair scraping backward on the concrete.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, resisting the urge to check his mouth for errant drool. He remembers why he was supposed be paying attention before Sam took ten minutes to type out a theory.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she says, eying him critically.

“Hell yeah, this thing is a lot of fun,” Cam leans back and rubs his nose before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Are you feeling okay?” Sam asks.

“Just tired,” he says, keeping his voice light.

Sam looks at him a moment longer before turning back to her monitor. “Okay, go ahead.”

Cam turns the device on and gets up from the stool, strolls out of her lab and heads down the hallway to Daniel’s office.

Daniel’s sitting there, frozen over the counter with a magnifying glass in one hand, and the other holding a glittering, jeweled brooch. Cam raises his eyebrow, considering. He crosses the room and squeezes the lever on Daniel’s chair, lowering him about a foot so that his chin is level with the counter. He pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and looks at it for a few seconds before tucking it inside Daniel's. For good measure, he turns the lights off and takes another few seconds to look, before spinning on his heel and heading back to Sam’s lab.

He takes his seat and turns the device back off. Sam’s fingers resume their rapid typing.

“COLONEL!” Daniel’s voice carries surprisingly well from around the corner.

Sam is startled and starts to rise from her seat, frowning.

“Me, not you,” Cameron explains lightly before propping his feet up on her counter-top.

 

***

Cam never tells anyone about the amount of time he's spent just looking at Daniel. During their last basketball game, he thinks Daniel may know he did something, because Cam wouldn't let himself look the rest of the game, and so Daniel made far too many baskets. Cameron is content to let him think he only drank all his water (what, he was thirsty) and leave it at that.

After the incident in the mess hall, Cam doesn't touch Daniel again. It seems too private. He remembers when Vala communicated with them through Daniel’s body, and being appalled at the idea that Daniel couldn’t resist the violation, despite Vala being respectful (for the most part). So he sticks with the watching. And the moving around of Daniel's books when he's in the middle of research.

***

The nurse that takes Cam’s blood has very cold hands. She only takes a tube, but after she’s done, Cam feels like he’s given a pint. He watches as she prepares a slide and takes it up to Sam in the observation room. Sam puts the slide under her microscope and then Cam sees her sit upright with a frown.

"Nanites," Sam says, staring at her computer screen in shock.

Cam stands up and nearly knocks over his chair. “What?!”

"Nanites!" Daniel shouts from the hallway, bursting into the observation deck waving a book. Sam looks up from the computer and nods.

"Yes, come check out Cam's blood sample," she points at the screen. Teal'c steps up behind her to see what’s being displayed.

“Hey!” Cam shouts. “What do you mean ‘nanites’?”

"Nanites," Vala gasps, charging into the observation room and skidding into Daniel.

" _Yes_ , we know," Sam says, intent on the computer screen.

Cam calls up from the observation room. “Y’all are making some ugly faces.”

“You’re infected with nanites.” Vala says into the microphone. Sam smacks her arm. “What?” Vala asks, looking around at Daniel for support. “He is!”

Sam grabs the microphone from Vala and nudges her away. “Come up here and look.” she says to Cam.

Cam runs around the corner into the observation deck and crowds in behind the team to see the screen.

It’s showing what appears to be tiny mechanized organisms with dozens of minuscule arms, swirling around in a sea of red.

"What is that?" Vala asks, and they all tip their heads to the side.

"It would appear that they are nanites," Teal'c deadpans. Sam snickers, turns it into a cough, and then concentrates on the screen again.

"It's Cam's blood," Daniel explains.

Every few moments, a sluggish clump of the nanites surrounds one of Cam’s blood cells and vibrate, glowing red for several seconds before releasing the cell abruptly and speeding away, brighter and faster than they were before the strange dance.

"What are they doing?" Cam asks, his nose wrinkling in mild distaste.

"They appear to be harvesting energy from your blood cells, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c offers.

"Ugh." Vala steps back.

"Are they replicators?" Cam asks.

"Were the replicators vampires?" Vala asks under her breath

“How do you know about vampires?” Daniel asks.

“Hey!” Cam claps his hands. “Can we focus, children?”

Sam scrunches her eyes up and shrugs. "They're not replicator design," she says, tapping a few keys and increasing the magnification. "And they appear to be dying." She focuses on an inert nanite, floating dead in the midst of the strange activity. It's not glowing, and it's tiny arms have curled up under itself. As they watch, more of the glowing nanites fade and still.

"What's happening to them?" Daniel asks.

"I imagine they're unable to keep harvesting energy since the cells aren't being renewed with oxygen," Sam theorizes. Then she starts, comprehension dawning. "Hey, how did you guys know they were nanites?" She swivels on her stool and looks at Vala. Vala's eyes light up, and she and Daniel both take a breath, ready to explain.

“What are we supposed to do about them?” Cam interrupts.

Sam turns off the screen and swivels in her chair to face him. “I’ll run some more tests.” she says. “In the meantime, they don’t seem to be harming you.”

Cam ignores the sidelong glance Daniel gives him and nods. “Right. Okay.”

 _Shit._

 

***

There's a knock on Cam's door. He's just back from a run and a shower, so he pulls on a pair of cargo pants and swings the door open wide. The accompanying gust of air cools water droplets on his shoulders.

Daniel is standing there with his hands in his pockets.

"Hi," Cam says carefully.

"Hi," Daniel says. “How are you?”

Cam shrugs and motions him inside. He's been trying to shake a headache all day, but Tylenol isn't helping. He has a feeling it's about to get worse. Daniel pulls one of his hands out of his pockets. In it is the note Cameron gave him earlier. He waves it in the air and strolls into Cam's room.

"It's an IOU," Cam offers, pointing at the note. He closes the door and reaches for his undershirt.

Daniel opens the paper and clears his throat, “IOU six minutes,” He looks at the paper a moment longer and then up at Cam’s face. “You spent all your time screwing up my notes and moving my desk chair and sneaking rocks into my boots as I’m about to put them on?”

Cam pulls the shirt over his head and shrugs again.

“Six minutes stealing the basketball away from me and tying my shoelaces together,”

Cam remains silent.

“Why?”

Cam swallows, clears his throat to speak, and then swallows again, clenching his teeth together.

“Cam?” Daniel prompts.

Cam looks up and at Daniel with a newly steady gaze. "Can I take the fifth?"

“Tell me.” It doesn't sound like anger, but Cam feels a little desperation in the words.

Cam blinks slowly, holding Daniel's gaze.

“This,” he says, punctuating with a tip of his head.

They stare at each other for a long moment, even while Daniel folds the note and puts it back into his pocket.

Cam waits him out, knowing he should be more uncomfortable, but unable to bring himself to remorse. Thirty seconds of watching Daniel’s body suspended in air reaching for a shot. A minute of a joking grin over the briefing table. A long, agonizing two when Daniel stood at a mirror in the locker room, razor against his cheek.

People still smell when they’re frozen, so he used his time to memorize the way Daniel’s deodorant blends with his skin, spicy and warm. And more to be sure of how the muscles in Daniel's forearms flex when he's writing on his chalk board. Another chunk to compare their heights, standing inches away, feeling his breath bounce back from Daniel's face.

“Cam,” Daniel sighs at last, like he's going to say something Cam won't want to hear. Cam can tell, there's a tightness in Daniel's eyes, and he's standing too stiffly.

“Yeah,” Cam sighs, reaching for the doorknob again, “Totally worth it, though.”

“Cam,” Daniel says again.

Cam turns back. "Listen, Daniel, I don't want you to be uncomfortable," he says.

"I'm not going anywhere," Daniel says slowly.

Cam feels sort strange in his chest, like someone re-arranged his heart and lungs.

"...Because I have an erection," Daniel finishes and clenches his eyes shut.

Cam's hand drops away from the door, and what seems like all of the blood in his body rushes to his groin.

"Ooo-kay now I do, too," he says.

"Yeah," Daniel grits out, and they crash together.

Cam thinks that he knows what Daniel’s body looks like pretty well by now, after all the time he’s spent watching. He isn’t really prepared, though, for how Daniel feels, crushed up against him, or how they move with each other. Their lips meet, drag together and then part. Daniel tenses and Cam panics a little, opening his eyes to see Daniel looking back. Cam feels his heart kicking rapidly in his chest and Daniel nudges his mouth forward again, sliding his tongue along Cam's bottom lip and inside his mouth. Cam groans and flexes his jaw.

He takes Daniel's glasses and slides them up to rest on top of his head, then grasps the nape of Daniel’s neck. He tucks his thumbs up under his ears, and groans when Daniel hips twitch forward and he opens his mouth wider, tongue slick and hot. It’s surreal, it’s delightful. Cam's face begin to flush. He’s excited and giddy, holding Daniel’s head like a precious object. A long, blissful moment passes, and Cam feels off-center. He takes a step forward, backing Daniel closer to the bed.

Their feet blunder around each other while they try to reconcile their knees and groins and bumping chests, finally fitting perfectly into the curves and hollows of each other with quiet, happy noises. Daniel’s arms settle around Cam’s hips, pulling their bodies impossibly closer, and he smooths his palms up the planes of Cam's back, rucking his undershirt up and sliding his mouth down the side of Cam's neck.

Cam's not wearing much – he never did manage to get his socks or shoes on, so at first it’s a matter of Daniel dragging and fumbling Cam’s under-shirt up and over his head, keeping his elbows from knocking Daniel in the face. The room wobbles around the edges of Cam’s vision and he blinks hard and shakes his head. That makes the dizziness worse; he stumbles back and throws his hand out to grasp Daniel’s shoulder while he tries to concentrate on making the floor still.

“What’s happening?” Cam gasps, his head beginning to throb and spin. Sweat breaks out on his forehead.

“What do you mean? Are you- ?” Daniel’s voice sounds a million miles away, but his hands are soothing on Cam’s cheeks. He tilts Cam’s face upward to peer carefully at his eyes, “My god, you’re burning up!”

“Is it an earthquake?” Cam asks stupidly before all the strength leaves his body and blackness creeps into his eyes and ears, damping out Daniel’s frantic shouting.

***

 _Cameron opens his eyes to the glittering pool of an event horizon inches before his nose. The blue light ripples when Cameron breaths, wide circles spreading outward. Cameron lifts his hand and the event horizon swells to him, sliding cooly over first his fingertips, and then his arm and his body. He closes his eyes at the last moment and when he opens them, he's floating through endless, dark water. A surface isn't within sight, but instead of panicking, he takes a breath, slow and deliberate. A giant fish made of metal and gears swims toward him, bright light shining from its eyes. It stops just before his face and opens its mouth wide--_

"Colonel," Doctor Lam's patient voice cuts through the ocean in his head.

Cam's eyes are pried open one at a time, a light shining directly in them. He tries to raise his left arm but feels a heavy weight around his wrist. He settles for fluttering his eyelids.

"You're in the infirmary with a very high fever," Carolyn explains, sliding her pen-light into the pocket of her lab coat.

Cam tries to open his mouth, tongue dry, and thinks about nodding. He struggles to make his eyes focus and sees Daniel staring at him over Carolyn's shoulder. He manages to blink twice and is asleep again before he knows what's happening.

***

 _The hot rush of hunger swarms through Cameron, urging his body down hallway after hallway packed with his fellow airmen and marines. He runs and runs, tired and restless, with only the thought of the commissary keeping him going. People are crowded around every corner, in every corridor, and he knocks into them, his body blundering into the walls._

 _The klaxons start blaring a warning. The SGC is under attack. Cameron's hunger is tearing him apart, but he abandons his search for food and turns around._

 _The team needs him._

 

***

Cam feels like his brain has been replaced by a swarm of angry bees. His joints ache to high-heaven, but he's breathing and can feel all his limbs, so he reckons that's enough for right now. He hears the crackle of the overhead paging system calling Carolyn, and the swishing of the nurses scrubs as they make their rounds. There's the high beep of a monitor, and he smells antiseptic and someone's lunch. He hears the creak of a chair when someone shifts near his side, and then catches a whiff of spicy, warm...

Daniel.

"Did we fix the gate yet?" Cam slurs, cracking one eye.

Daniel looks startled, but recovers easily. "Nope," he replies. "Just you." He wrinkles his nose and closes the book he is reading.

"Oh." Cam shifts and scratches his cheek. "I guess you gotta start somewhere?"

"So," Daniel says as he stands out of the chair and switches to a closer perch on Cam's bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"Ughhh," Cam groans. "Like crap. What happened?"

"Those pesky nanites caused some problems," Daniel says. "They were using that energy from your blood cells to power the wrist band."

"Now that's just nasty," Cam says with a grimace.

"Yeah." Daniel smiles.

"S'that funny?" Cam can't help but crack a grin, too, before remembering and trying to sit up. "Hey, we were--"

"Yes, and we'll finish later," Daniel says quickly, pressing his hand to Cam's chest.

Cam settles back into his pillows with a sigh.

"Cool."

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was nanites - in case it wasn't obvious. :D


End file.
